Superchargers have been used since 1901 using a mechanical pump to increase the air pressure and oxygen to the cylinder for internal combustion. Many variations to the mechanical pump have been designed since then but applying pneumatic air amplification to an internal combustion is a new concept with great potential which also applies with turbocharged or supercharged engines. The invention presented utilizes air amplifier technology to increase the power output of internal combustion engines. This new invention is a low cost version albeit with less power output than a conventional supercharger on a given engine but can also supplement a supercharger. Air amplifiers are used along with high-pressure air supply to increase airflow into the cylinders.
There are several patents that utilize compressed air injected into engines to enhance performance. Turbocharger enhancements such as the Weick et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,673,796 inject air directly to the manifold on demand. Similar Lorenz et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,064,423 supplies a supercharger by an exhaust driven turbine, which includes an air pump driven by a compressed air tank. Lawson Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,538 also enhances a turbocharger by recirculating the turbocharged air during injection of the compressed air.
None of these other methods utilize an air amplifier, which have inherent practical advantage. When using compressed air on even moderately sized engines requires a large flow of compressed air. There are physical limitations on the flow rate of compressed air into ambient pressure. Physics dictates the speed of sound is the limit at which air will flow through a nozzle from a pressurized tank. Therefore for a given valve diameter or nozzle there is a limit to the flow rate. It is possible to have larger diameter nozzles but controlling the flow with large valves becomes much less practical. Air amplifiers can produce large flow rates at modest pressure gains and are very reliable. Another advantage is the flexibility of being able to turn off the additional power and there is no loss in fuel economy if required, or power on demand. Using compressed air that is stored at ambient temperature also has the advantage of cooling the intake temperature to reduce chance of detonation at high output power. Simplicity of air amplifiers can also produce lower system cost for moderate performance gains. Since there are no moving parts in the air amplifier they are very reliable as long as the system is properly filtered to avoid clogs.